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"A human being should be able to change a
diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a
building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone,
comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone,
solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Saturday, 15 November 2014

The quest for new languages: Scala

As a
programmer I try to keep track of the new tools are continuously made
available to my work. It's a hard task, almost impossible, since
every day new languages, framework or libraries are proposed on the
Internet. I usually follow a conservative strategy by leaving
novelties to “grown up” a little in order to see it they are more
or less widely used.

I've
been recently reading this
article, among the many languages and technologies cited one
particularly awakened my interest: Scala.

Why
Scala?

Three
things about Scala caught at my attention: first it runs on a
standard Java virtual machine this means an easier integration with
the programming ecosystem I'm mostly used to work with. Then I
learned that Scala implements the functional programming paradigm. I
really know little about functional
programming but the idea of learning a new programming paradigm
really enticed me. Last, but not least, Scala is nowadays widely used
in big and complex software projects like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Scala
on Eclipse (Luna)

A
good Eclipse plug-in is available for Scala named Scala
IDE for Eclipse. I fist tried downloading the one available at
Eclipse
Marketplace but I soon discovered
it didn't work with Eclipse Luna. After some searching in the
Internet I discovered the only working version for Eclipse Luna is
version 4.0
release candidate 2. Installing the plug-in has been only matter
of copying the update address
into Eclipse “Install new software” window, agreeing to
licenses and following instructions.

Scala
on Netbeans 8

Also
installing Scala on Netbeans (and the EEEPC) has been a bit tricky.
Following instructions from here
I First installed all available Scala plug-ins from Netbeans plug-in
manager

Then
I downloaded Scala binaries from here
and extracted them into the the “/opt” folder

I
then added Scala paths to environment variables by editing “.profile”
file and adding the following

if [ -d
"/opt/scala-2.10.4/bin" ] ; then

PATH="/opt/scala-2.10.4/bin:$PATH"

SCALA_HOME="/opt/scala-2.10.4"

fi

I also added Scala
path to “nedbeans-default-options” section in
“netbeans.conf” file